


Home

by LtTanyaBoone



Category: NCIS
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-27
Updated: 2009-09-27
Packaged: 2017-11-15 08:56:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtTanyaBoone/pseuds/LtTanyaBoone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Let's go home."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

_Disclaimers:_ NCIS, the rights to the show and its characters do not belong to me. No money was made by this. _  
Spoilers:_ Season 6 finale as well as the first episode of Season 7

* * *

_"Let's go home."_

He had been such a fool. Choosing between her and DiNozzo. He should have refused to leave her behind back on the tarmac. He should have hugged her close and told her they'd find a way that both of them would be able to stay on the team. That they could make it work. But he hadn't. He had made his decision; he had known that David would not protect her, that he had set her up to do this. But still, he had not tried to evade the trap.

Now, seeing her like this, in Abby's arms, made his heart ache. She looked so fragile and broken. She was not the woman he had known any longer. What had happened back in D.C. and then in Israel had already changed her before he had left, he had known that, he had seen it in her eyes on the tarmac when she had told him that she would not be able to continue working with DiNozzo. But now she had changed even more. On the flight, she had fallen into a restless sleep. And Tony had told him what she had said in the cell where she had been tortured.

Justified, his ass. Nothing justified that someone laid a hand on her. Nothing she had done justified that someone beat her up and leave her there. Nothing that had happened justified her own father abandoning her, telling them that she had died. And nothing she had said or done had justified that he leave her behind.

She was back now. She was back in D.C., would be back at NCIS. And he realized that she had been wrong. This was her home. This was more of her home than Mossad was, than Tel Aviv, than Israel were.

Here were the people that cared whether she lived or died. Whether she spent her days crying tears of laughter and happiness or sadness and grief and fear. Those were the people that loved her. She was a part of their family.

And he would never be forced to chose between her and his team ever again. Because she was a part of it. Just like Abby, DiNozzo and McGee, she was his adopted child. And he would look out for her, and protect her, no matter what. And he would tell her how glad he was that she was still alive and finally back. That the family was finally complete again.

_fin._


End file.
